Page 51 of Hunted
I used my knife to cut the embroidered patch off the vampire elder’s silk robe.The fabric shimmered faintly—blood magic woven through the threads.A marker of rank.Now it would serve as proof for Acacia.One name erased from her ledger of rivals.One step closer to her throne.
Or so she thought.
Robin stood across from me, her gold eyes glowing faintly in the low light of a single weak flashlight.Smoke curled from the edges of her coat, her entire body superheated in a rare show of restrained frustration.
“He was old,” I said, tucking the scrap of fabric into my pocket and sheathing my dagger.From what we’d gathered, the vampire had been involved in the civil war.Rummaging around in the backpack at my feet, I retrieved a pair of work gloves for me and Robin so we could hide the body under a pile of loose brick and stone from the crumbling tunnel around us.
“He was weak,” Robin said as she pulled on her gloves and got to work.“Especially for someone supposedly angling to become a syndicate king.”
“He certainly didn’t seem dangerous,” I agreed, as I started tossing rocks and old, broken bricks into the shallow divot that contained Acacia’s ex-rival.
Robin growled faintly.“He was on Acacia’s list.Which means he was more dangerous than he seemed.I did my research.Acacia didn’t fear him because he was some physical powerhouse.She feared him because he was old, and sneaky, and very well-versed in politics and mind games.”She straightened and pushed back a lock of hair that had escaped her long, serviceable braid.“From what I was able to gather, Leeds was working in the background, quietly undermining Acacia’s rule.He saw taking her position as the first step to taking over the syndicate entirely.He already had half the bloodsuckers ready to back him.He was just waiting for the right moment to murder Acacia and take over.”She snorted.“Maybe we should have let him have at it.”
I scoffed as I tossed a brick onto the pile with a hollow clack of stone-against-stone.“Most of Acacia’s backstabbing court probably has similar plans.Who knows when it ever would have come to fruition.”Acacia ruled through a combination of false pretenses and fear, helped along by her psychotic mental instability.She didn’t instill loyalty.It was usually like that in the syndicate’s vampire court—they’d been through countless kings and queens over the years, all of them murdered by their successors after a relatively short time in the position.
No that the fae or the shifters were much better.
Silence stretched between us.Once we were done with our macabre chore, I took out a piece of paper and squatted down to draw the sigil Sanka had written down for me into the dirt near our unfortunate victim’s grave, then I sealed it with a bit of my yuki-onna magic.It wouldn’t completely conceal the body if someone was really looking, but it would prevent it being accidentally discovered at a casual glance.The corpse would be gone before too long, and not many people frequented this part of the underground.But it never hurt to be cautious, where murder was involved.That was a rule I unfortunately knew all too well, thanks to my time as the most infamous assassin in O’Dell’s fae court.
Robin exhaled, voice low.“It doesn’t matter what we think, or what the vampires are up to.We agreed.We do this, or Acacia continues to put the entire court at risk with her petulant little outbursts.Besides, I wouldn’t put it past her to grow bored with her little game and kill Josh before moving on to other pursuits.So we might as well make his messenger position seem useful.”
“I know, I know,” I muttered, standing and wiping my hands on my pants.I hated how grimy you always got down here in the tunnels.The grit got everywhere and it clung to you even as you tried to wash it away, like sand.
“I don’t think you do know,” she murmured.“I think if it was up to you, you’d toss Josh out the door and be done with it.Acacia would tell the emperor who tried to kill him, so he’d be focused on us and we’d lose all advantage.”
I turned slowly.The air around us was damp, heavy with dust and mold.My wings twitched against my back, itching to propel me out of here and into clear, fresh air.
“I told you to go ahead and make the stupid deal, didn’t I?”I said flatly.I was an asshole, sure, but I wasn’tthatcoldhearted.Not really.
Robin’s jaw twitched.“And now?”She watched me from the periphery of that golden gaze, seeing things I really didn’t want anyone to see.
I huffed.“Now I’m not sure.Was I wrong?Have we all started to lose our edge?Am I’m just being overly emotional about the whole thing?What should one or two measly sacrifices matter in the grand scheme of things?Especially if those sacrifices are strangers who were dragged into our court uninvited, without any rhyme or reason.The old me wouldn’t have hesitated to get rid of the vampire’s little puppet, whether you asked me to or not.”
Robin didn’t reply, and for a time, I thought maybe I was lucky enough to avoid talking any more about my increasingly inconvenientemotionsandmorals.
We moved without words, through side tunnels and ruptured service passages, through places that had once been intended as subway tunnels and through other passages carved there by smugglers during the prohibition era—and earlier.Robin’s aura stayed taut and controlled, a silent threat wound tightly beneath her skin.I kept my own magic close, icy and crisp.Enough to kill if needed.Enough to survive the night if the seemingly simple murder went sideways.
We followed an indirect path to avoid anyone tracing our movements back to the theater, emerging several blocks away.At the surface, the air hit me like a slap—cleaner, colder, free from dust and damp, filled with the concrete smell of the old city.The theater’s deceptively neglected-looking exterior rose in the distance, a pale ghost in a city too tired to protest its own decay.The whole area was a purgatory and eventual graveyard for the unaligned paranorms of the area—those too weak to be accepted by the syndicate or too stubborn to bend to its will, but toootherto fit in among humans.
“This doesn’t make you that man again,” Robin said at the last moment, right as we hesitated on the steps in front of The Fox.“If that’s what’s worrying you.”She gripped my shoulder and forced me to face her, staring intently into my eyes before she pressed a short, sharp kiss to my lips.“And Acacia will pay for it.For daring to insinuate we are nothing more than tools.For making you think of the old times.I promise you.”
I took a deep breath and let it out in a huff of exasperation.Of course she saw what the real problem was here.And ofcourse she couldn’t just let it go without pointing out all my stupid fears.“Shut up,” I muttered, even though her fierce promise made my blood sing.
Pulling aside a piece of plywood that wasn’t as well secured as it looked from the outside, I stepped through the illusion of a broken door and then through the fully intact entrance that Sanka’s magic kept hidden away from prying eyes.
Inside The Fox, the others were waiting, casually lounging around the balcony, rather than the actual living room down in the private areas of the building—as if this was an everyday occurrence.As if they hadn’t been waiting up for us all night just to make sure we returned safely.Disgusting.I was a well-trained assassin.I shouldn’t need looking after.
I followed Robin up the stairs to the sitting area, my entire body feeling heavy and too tight.
Cicely perched on the arm of an antique couch, one hand curled around a mug of something herbal and sweet-smelling.Richard lingered at the back of the space like the question no one wanted to ask—why the fuck was he still here?He should have done us all a favor and fucked off somewhere the second Sanka got him a half-decent blocking charm.And yet, here he was.
Josh was absent.Good.I wasn’t ready to look at him yet.
Resentment coiled through my belly, and I did my best to force it down, to numb it out the way I’d been taught to numb all my emotions when I was among my fae kin.But the feeling didn’t want to cooperate.It kept rising up like bile, threatening to overflow and make me say something someone would regret.Probably notme.But someone.
I knew it wasn’t really Josh’s fault.But I hated that I was being forced to play assassin for the syndicate again just to keep Acacia from lashing out through him.Even though the circumstances were vastly different than before, even though I had willingly killed countless times to aid the rebel court and help Robin realize her dreams of revenge...this was different.
It felt like I was beingusedagain.A puppet to yet another power-hungry asshole who saw murder as a reasonable way to get what they wanted.As if my only value as a person was how quickly I could make someone bleed out.As if I was just one tool among many, easily replaced when it grew dull.
